Book Eight The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey - Love at first Frost Bite

I fell I love with this book. +Daniel had warned me this would happen but like any such emotional event it is something you need to experience for yourself. One of the blurbs on the back of the copy I was reading said The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey was a fairy tale for adults who no longer believed in fairy tales.  This is a fitting description for a book that was about very adult themes of loss and grief and love but written in a way that made you want to dance through the Alaskan wilderness in full winter as if there was no danger.

Very few books have ever produced tears in my eyes but this one did and the times when this happened were very surprising. Who would have thought shooting a moose could be so emotive. Or an ending that you are warned for most of the book will happen still catches tears in the back of your throat. How a person’s name yelled the right way could sound like a wolf baying. The skill of the writing had me checking the claim that this was Alaskan native Ivey’s first novel.

In a nutshell the book is about Mabel and Jack who have been married for a number of years but later in life than those around them. In attempting to deal with the long held grief of a stillborn child they bravely pack up from East Coast USA in the 1920s and move to Alaska to start a new life. The first thing you realise is that Mabel is not suited for such a life and Jack is not keen on involving her in the man’s work.

The live next to and around each other and each chapter moves the point of view from one to the other and we are privy to their private thoughts and fears as their past is unveiled and their hopes revealed. A number of things happen that change their lives and one of the most notable is the Benson family who through the force of nature that is Esther, the matriarch of this family of men, intrude upon their lives to become their friends. The Bensons, including George the Dad and Garrett the youngest of their three sons, prove to Jack and Mabel that we cannot live life alone even when we want to.

Not surprisingly winter is harsh and for the first thirty pages I kept hearing Ned Stark warn that winter was coming as the Alaskan weather dictated the moods and fears of the small homestead struggling to find its feet. The tension between the couple is palpable but each holds a deep affection for the other that they have difficulty expressing.

One night the couple find themselves behaving like children as huge flaked snow falls around them and they make themselves a beautifully described snow girl in a rash of sadly unusual moments of love for each other.

The book itself is based on an old Russian fairy tale and Ivey chooses to not only highlight this fact but incorporates into the story. This means you know fairly early where the book has to conclude for the magic to work. Over the years following that night a young girl enters into and out of their life and may or may not be the result of their handiwork in the snow. None of this is really important as you go on each character’s journey of self discovery that explores how we can all go further than we ever imagine, how friendships can be formed in the most unlikely places and how love has a strength all of its own. Faena is the girl in question and comes back into their lives each winter bringing gifts both visceral and intangible. Jack and Mabel discover their capacity for love and protection and their grief is overtaken by their determination and love.

There are scenes and sections that held me like very few books have before. I may be a gay man but I do not believe the general clichés of the world are true so do fall for the line that we gay men are more sensitive than other men. I do not see emotional connection such as this book offers to be of the realm of the female. I only see men and women whose emotional connections are repressed. This is one of those reads that delves into the recesses of even the most cynical and allows them to experience life like they probably never will. For most of us it is a harshness of life we do not want to. The ease of reading but depth of emotional content put me more in mind of someone like Chekov who I consider a master of the sublime through the mundane.

This is one of those books that will be in book clubs and Oprah lists, like The Time Traveller’s Wife, and will generally considered a woman’s book but I believe this does it a great disservice. This is a layered and nuanced read that enables the reader to climb inside a number of different character’s minds and experience their world. A rare achievement in my reading experience. Every character is richly drawn and all go through real change that life puts us all through.

It is only the snow girl Faena who is more than human but she is no mere fairy tale creature skipping through the drifts, and is able to hunt and kill and skin to stay alive. This may be a fairy tale but you are constantly reminded at the harsh and dangerous world we are in.

I am not a great fan of excessive snow falling where I live, as +Daniel will attest but I found the descriptions of the geography and the weather in this book to be so engrossing that I found myself on romantic internal journeys over the wilds of Alaska just to actually see what was in my mind. Of course my common sense would always remind me it was just a book.

Faena is of the woods and of the snow and for much of the book only the couple can see her allowing the reader to doubt the veracity of their experiences. This was such a clever device as normally fairy tales like this occur to people in isolation. Bringing the tale into a real world setting allowed the line of sanity and imagination to be artfully explored. One of my favourite lines was in a letter from Mabel’s sister who represents what they left behind and expresses the families growing admiration at what the couple achieve.

‘I remember with some shame that the rest of us teased you about seeing such spirits, but now my own grandchildren chase similar fancies and I do not discourage them. In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.’

Mostly this book is a visual treat to the imagination and cries out to be made into a movie. I found myself wanting to see the cinematic version immediately, which is rare. There is no need to change much as the magic and dialogue is already there. I still want to see the characters and situations brought to life even though I know it will never come close to the movie that keeps playing in my mind.

The only negative thing I can say to this book is that it has slowed up my reading in the 100 book challenge as The Snow Child has stuck with me and plays out in my mind making it very difficult to follow the words in another book. Thank goodness for long train journeys as I intend to crack onto the next one on the 5-hour train trip I am now on.